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War reparations refers to the monetary
compensation intended to cover damage or injury during a war.
Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or
goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the
annexation of land.

After the
Franco-Prussian War, according
to conditions of Treaty of
Frankfurt (May 10, 1871), France was obliged
to pay a war indemnity of 5 billion gold francs in 5 years.
German troops remained in parts of France until the last
installment of the indemnity was paid in September 1873, before the
obliged date.

In the end, war victims in many countries were compensated by the
property of Germans that were expelled after World War
II. Beginning immediately after the German
surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all
technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in
Germany. Historian John Gimbel,
in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation
and Plunder in Postwar Germany, states that the "intellectual
reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10
billion dollars.German reparations were partly to be in the form of
forced labor. By 1947, approximately
4,000,000 German POW's and civilians were used
as forced labor (under various headings, such as "reparations
labor" or "enforced labor") in the Soviet Union, France, the UK,
Belgium and in Germany in U.S run "Military Labor Service
Units".

According
to the Paris Peace Treaties,
1947, Italy agreed to
pay reparations of about US$125 million to Yugoslavia, US$105 million to Greece, US$100
million to the Soviet Union, US$25 million to Ethiopia, and US$5 million to Albania.Finland agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the
Soviet Union.Hungary agreed to pay reparations of US$200 million to the
Soviet Union, US$100 million to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.Romania agreed to pay reparations of US$300 million to the
Soviet Union.Bulgaria agreed to pay reparations of $50 million to Greece
and $25 million to Yugoslavia.According to the articles of
these treaties, the value of US$ was prescribed as 35 US dollars to
one troy ounce of pure gold.

Japan

According to the Treaty of
Peace with Japan and the bilateral agreements, Japan agreed to
pay around 1 trillion and 30 billion yen. For countries that
renounced any reparations from Japan, it agreed to pay indemnity
and/or grants in accordance with bilateral agreements.

Criticisms

that they are punitive measures against the populace of the
losing side only, rather than against the belligerent side, which
may be the side that justly ought to make amends.

that in very many instances, the defeated populace's
government waged war, and the people themselves had little
or no role in deciding to wage war, and therefore war reparations
are imposed on innocent people.

that after years of war, the populace of the losing side is
likely already impoverished, and the imposition of war reparations
therefore may drive the people into deeper poverty, both fueling
long-term resentment of the victor and making the actual payments
unlikely.

John Maynard Keynes claimed that
overall influence on the world economy would have been
disastrous.

Some critics hold that war reparations were an indirect, but major,
cause of World War II. After
the end of World War I, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles imposed heavy war
reparations upon Germany. Some claim these reparations payments
exacerbated German economic problems, and the resulting hyperinflation ruined the chances of the
Weimar
Republic with the
public and allowed the rise of the Nazi
Party and Adolf Hitler.
After the Franco-Prussian War, the amount of reparations amount was
set at a fixed value. Moreover, the post-World War I amount was
subject to frequent recalculations, which encouraged Germany to
obstruct payments. Eventually, all payments were cancelled after
Hitler rose to power.

The experience of the post-World War I reparations led to the
post-World War II solution, where winning powers were supposed to
take reparations in machines and movable goods from the defeated
nations, as opposed to money.

Recent war reparations

After the
Gulf War, Iraq accepted
United NationsSecurity Council resolution 687, which
declared Iraq's financial liability for damage caused in its
invasion of Kuwait. The
United Nations
Compensation Commission ("UNCC") was established, and US$350
billion in claims were filed by governments, corporations, and
individuals. Funds for these payments were to come from a 30% share
of Iraq's oil revenues from the oil for
food program. It was not anticipated that US$350 billion would
become available for total payment of all reparations claims, so
several schedules of prioritization were created over the years.
The UNCC says that its prioritization of claims by natural people,
ahead of claims by governments and legal people, "marked a
significant step in the evolution of international claims
practice."

Payments under this reparations program continue; as of July 2004,
the UNCC stated that it had actually distributed US$18.4 billion to
claimants.

There have been attempts to codify reparations both in the Statutes
of the International
Criminal Court and the UN Basic Principles on the Right to a
Remedy and Reparation for Victims[50314].